Spence

My Hero Academia- I haven't had this much fun with an anime since FMA:Brotherhood.

Well it did stumble a little in the first season and they did need to firm up the effects.  But once it got it's feet under it, I think it really took off.  
 
The only really crappy thing about it was I wrestled me down and twisted my arm until I bought and read the rest of the books
Now I know what is going to happen
 
They did do a great job keeping with the book though, my favorite scifi TV series in the last 5 years.

My wife and I watched The Expanse starting on Tuesday, one episode per night. By the end of Thursday's episode, I was considering deleting it from my watch list. Then, we watched episode 4 on Friday...then 5, 6, and 7. And suddenly we'd stayed up way too late, and wanted to stay up later and finish the season!  But we were good and didn't. Looking forward to finishing it up, though!

I watched the new version of The Magnificent Seven.   Not bad and better than I thought it would be. 

Yeah, Season 1 was fun, but the writing was a little spotty at times. I'm only 2 episodes in to Season 2, and so far I would agree they seem to have worked a few kinks out.
 
Although [pet peeve alert] can I say how incredibly tired I am of seeing futuristic maximum security "inescapable" prisons with worse security protocols than any small rural county lockup today? I mean okay, over-reliant on technology, sure. But have literally no copies of Corrections For Dummies survived into the future?

Finally saw Suicide Squad. I think the cast as a whole did a great job playing the roles they were given.
 
Unfortunately, the incarnations of the characters selected and the overall story was crap. DC movies just keep digging that hole.
 
If I was the cast I'd sue.

It does when you realize that being PC is not the domain of a specific group.  In my day we didn't have the term.  You just had groups that tried to suppress anything not in line with their own beliefs.  Be it Discrimination, you are different and therefore not allowed to have the same freedoms as "correctly minded" people.  Or Bigotry, You don't agree with me therefore I refuse to listen or talk to you.   We didn't call it political correctness, but it was alive and well.  Trek ignored these conventions by setting up great stories and then injecting items that were decidedly not in line with "correct mindedness".   The Vietnam protests were a less elegant, though just as important to how America evolved.  They were all driving forces in reinforcing the fundamental right of free expression guaranteed in the US's governing documents.   When I was growing up, even distasteful or even hateful groups had a right to free expression. 
 
You cannot guarantee a citizen a right and then pick and choose who exercises that right based on whether you personally agree with it.   So while they may be idiots and mentally unstable, a member of the Nazi Party can indeed have a rally or protest.   Is their outlook and vision repugnant and against any sane persons views?  In my opinion yes.  But do they have the right to gather and express those views?  Absolutely.  If you don't want to be exposed to them, don't go.  On the other hand, you cannot actually understand their true positions and platform until you have actually listened to a speech.  Not read an article or view a clip composed/edited by someone else to tell you what they think you should know about them.  But actually see, contemplate and form your own first hand evaluation.   That is what colleges used to be.  Areas allowing free thought, even of things that were frowned upon, so that people could form their opinions first hand. 
 
Sometime in the 80's/90's(??) the idea of free expression became dangerous to those same institutions.  Because free speech and thought is well, free speech and thought.  They suddenly began suppressing dissent by labeling anything that didn't fall into a narrow view not as "wrong" or "forbidden", but as "mean" or "ill mannered".  Over time it has evolved as anything not rigidly in line is "offensive" and any action that does not prominently support that rigid narrow view (regardless of actual reason) is a "micro-aggression".   Anyone who requests the underlying reasoning or information supporting a position is a "hater", "bigot" or when all else fails a "racist".  Instead of reasoned dialog and using discussion to promote a view, the modern methods is to lambast and drive out anyone with a different view and bunker down in closed "safe-spaces" hiding from any form of unapproved information.  
 
Just before the election I was radio hopping, looking for a station that did not have end of the world ranting on it.  From everyone, Left, Right, Middle.  Everyone.  So I found a station where they were talking about restaurants.  Not wages or other politically charged topics, but general types.  Chain, Top End, Hole-in-the-Wall, etc.  They had not even brought up type as in ethnic origin at all.  So the male radio host said ask about what the female host thought about Hole-in-the-Wall restaurants and mentioned that it seemed to him that many people tended to think, right or wrong, that they were less clean that others.  Now here is the main catch, the female host immediately snapped out that he couldn't say that because it was a racist statement.  That!?  I didn't realize that Hole-in-the-Wall was a race of humans.
 
The key point I am making is that our so called centers of education have so isolated themselves in a protected bubble that echoes with only their personal ideas and completely insulates them from, well anything, to the point that they not longer even understand what it is they are supposed to be against. 
 
Bigot is now synonymous with Racist. 
Racist means anyone that does not agree with you.
Instead of listening to someones statement and then saying I disagree and moving on as informed.
They ban anything that might possibly disagree with preconceptions based on someone else's opinion formed equally without information because they also never took the time to listen. 
 
That is what we now call Politically Correct. 
It is not exclusive to the left and what ever agenda a group may have.   All spectrum's have their own defined PC listing.  
 
The sad thing is that most of the small groups have become the rabid hate groups that they are supposedly fighting.    Star Trek never bashed a group or idea.  They never spewed hatred.
They always told a great yarn and then casually slide in a "this is OK too" in such a manner as to provoke thought while at the same time not screaming "you all suck" to anyone that did not agree.  
 
Trek was great. 
 
Take Discovery.   
There is going to be a gay character.  So?  what is the difference between a gay football team and a not gay football team as far as playing the sport?  Nothing.  In fact "gay" is irrelevant to football.  
What will the character be?  An Engineer? OK cool.  Gay is not a factor in engineering.  There is no need for trumpets and fanfare.  Trek is about exploration and discovery.  Treat the side story personal relationship stuff just like they do for the non-gay characters.   Casual side comments and "its no big deal" this is just normal. 
 
The main character is going to be a woman? So?  This is not even worth a mention.  Sci-Fi/Fantasy across all media has been having strong leading female roles for decades.  Half of my favorite shows on TV to include Crime Procedurals and Drama's have female leads.  This is just a non-event.
 
What is bad about Discovery is the giddy joy that it can now have soft porn and gritty violence.   I love Game of Thrones, but full frontal nudity, soft porn and gory blood splatter scenes fit that story.
Star Trek implied off screen romance and centered the stories on exploration and discovery.  Note I said romance, not sex.  While they can be the same, romance implies a less gutter version.
 
The problem is that we have so many people (under 30) that no longer even know what they are so violently against.  They pop out catch phrases and memes without any real understanding of what they are even saying.  Ask for someone to define the word "bigot".  Generally speaking, though not always, they will pop out "a person that is racist".  They definitely won't say "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions".  And they will not get the humor of pointing them at a mirror.
 
I once had one of my mentors tell me something that stuck.  He asked me how I would know when I had reached the point of being accepted as equal among my peers?   His answer surprised me and then I realized it was true.   You are equal when what you do is not longer remarked upon, when you are effectively ignored unless interaction is needed.   While I was in training, success was denoted by praise, failure by admonishment.  Once I was fully qualified and actually competent, success was expected and and not considered special.   
 
Many groups simply do not know how to handle the fact they have succeeded. 
Equality in America means that if you don't work hard you will fail and no one outside your immediate family will really care. 
Success means working 50-80+ hours weeks for years until you achieve that success.
Are there people that get a hand up because their parents were successful?  Sure.  But that is true in the US across the spectrum origin.  
 
Our biggest issue is that the people that are most vocal in dissent, I don't call it actual protesting because a real protestor has a specific goal and an idea of how to achieve it.   They are just demanding and wanting some undefined vague "other person" to pay for it. 
 
You want universal free healthcare?  Cool.  But you cannot use any of the existing structure.  You need to redefine how things are paid for.  Yes paid for.  Since it is free, you will need to establish a tax to pay for it.  Since it is mandated and free, you have to eliminate the very lucrative lawsuit machine.  To ensure quality of care is evenly available you need to eliminate monetary issues, establish a civil service/military style pay grade system.    All surgeons with 15 years experience get 50K a year plus a locality adjustment to compensate for local housing costs, etc.  The operation goes bad?  No you cannot sue for compensation.  An inquest will determine if it was negligence or criminal and the offender (if there is a guilty one) will be punished.  But you will not get $, you will get free medical because it is free.
 
So far all the Treks have been great.    I may not have personally liked a series because of story line or theme.  Both Voyager and Enterprise sucked because IMO time travel in Trek is the admission from the show runners that they have run out of ideas and are punting.  But all the shows did the exploration and discovery of wide and varied themes very well. 
 
The new movies have nailed the cast but for some reason don't seem to have any idea of what Trek is.  Explosions and destroying the Enterprise in each movie is not it.
 
Adding soft porn and violence is not a formulae needed in a Trek show.  And neither is casting according to a PC checklist.  Instead just cast the part to fill the role needed without fanfare. 
 
Ignore the idiots and move on. 

I feel we can extend this observation to all sci-fi/fantasy on television. As are a number of other cruch tropes: body/mind-swapping and clones/duplicates posing as the original characters being the other two that immediately come to (my) mind.

It does when you realize that being PC is not the domain of a specific group.  In my day we didn't have the term.  You just had groups that tried to suppress anything not in line with their own beliefs.  Be it Discrimination, you are different and therefore not allowed to have the same freedoms as "correctly minded" people.  Or Bigotry, You don't agree with me therefore I refuse to listen or talk to you.   We didn't call it political correctness, but it was alive and well.  Trek ignored these conventions by setting up great stories and then injecting items that were decidedly not in line with "correct mindedness".   The Vietnam protests were a less elegant, though just as important to how America evolved.  They were all driving forces in reinforcing the fundamental right of free expression guaranteed in the US's governing documents.   When I was growing up, even distasteful or even hateful groups had a right to free expression. 
 
You cannot guarantee a citizen a right and then pick and choose who exercises that right based on whether you personally agree with it.   So while they may be idiots and mentally unstable, a member of the Nazi Party can indeed have a rally or protest.   Is their outlook and vision repugnant and against any sane persons views?  In my opinion yes.  But do they have the right to gather and express those views?  Absolutely.  If you don't want to be exposed to them, don't go.  On the other hand, you cannot actually understand their true positions and platform until you have actually listened to a speech.  Not read an article or view a clip composed/edited by someone else to tell you what they think you should know about them.  But actually see, contemplate and form your own first hand evaluation.   That is what colleges used to be.  Areas allowing free thought, even of things that were frowned upon, so that people could form their opinions first hand. 
 
Sometime in the 80's/90's(??) the idea of free expression became dangerous to those same institutions.  Because free speech and thought is well, free speech and thought.  They suddenly began suppressing dissent by labeling anything that didn't fall into a narrow view not as "wrong" or "forbidden", but as "mean" or "ill mannered".  Over time it has evolved as anything not rigidly in line is "offensive" and any action that does not prominently support that rigid narrow view (regardless of actual reason) is a "micro-aggression".   Anyone who requests the underlying reasoning or information supporting a position is a "hater", "bigot" or when all else fails a "racist".  Instead of reasoned dialog and using discussion to promote a view, the modern methods is to lambast and drive out anyone with a different view and bunker down in closed "safe-spaces" hiding from any form of unapproved information.  
 
Just before the election I was radio hopping, looking for a station that did not have end of the world ranting on it.  From everyone, Left, Right, Middle.  Everyone.  So I found a station where they were talking about restaurants.  Not wages or other politically charged topics, but general types.  Chain, Top End, Hole-in-the-Wall, etc.  They had not even brought up type as in ethnic origin at all.  So the male radio host said ask about what the female host thought about Hole-in-the-Wall restaurants and mentioned that it seemed to him that many people tended to think, right or wrong, that they were less clean that others.  Now here is the main catch, the female host immediately snapped out that he couldn't say that because it was a racist statement.  That!?  I didn't realize that Hole-in-the-Wall was a race of humans.
 
The key point I am making is that our so called centers of education have so isolated themselves in a protected bubble that echoes with only their personal ideas and completely insulates them from, well anything, to the point that they not longer even understand what it is they are supposed to be against. 
 
Bigot is now synonymous with Racist. 
Racist means anyone that does not agree with you.
Instead of listening to someones statement and then saying I disagree and moving on as informed.
They ban anything that might possibly disagree with preconceptions based on someone else's opinion formed equally without information because they also never took the time to listen. 
 
That is what we now call Politically Correct. 
It is not exclusive to the left and what ever agenda a group may have.   All spectrum's have their own defined PC listing.  
 
The sad thing is that most of the small groups have become the rabid hate groups that they are supposedly fighting.    Star Trek never bashed a group or idea.  They never spewed hatred.
They always told a great yarn and then casually slide in a "this is OK too" in such a manner as to provoke thought while at the same time not screaming "you all suck" to anyone that did not agree.  
 
Trek was great. 
 
Take Discovery.   
There is going to be a gay character.  So?  what is the difference between a gay football team and a not gay football team as far as playing the sport?  Nothing.  In fact "gay" is irrelevant to football.  
What will the character be?  An Engineer? OK cool.  Gay is not a factor in engineering.  There is no need for trumpets and fanfare.  Trek is about exploration and discovery.  Treat the side story personal relationship stuff just like they do for the non-gay characters.   Casual side comments and "its no big deal" this is just normal. 
 
The main character is going to be a woman? So?  This is not even worth a mention.  Sci-Fi/Fantasy across all media has been having strong leading female roles for decades.  Half of my favorite shows on TV to include Crime Procedurals and Drama's have female leads.  This is just a non-event.
 
What is bad about Discovery is the giddy joy that it can now have soft porn and gritty violence.   I love Game of Thrones, but full frontal nudity, soft porn and gory blood splatter scenes fit that story.
Star Trek implied off screen romance and centered the stories on exploration and discovery.  Note I said romance, not sex.  While they can be the same, romance implies a less gutter version.
 
The problem is that we have so many people (under 30) that no longer even know what they are so violently against.  They pop out catch phrases and memes without any real understanding of what they are even saying.  Ask for someone to define the word "bigot".  Generally speaking, though not always, they will pop out "a person that is racist".  They definitely won't say "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions".  And they will not get the humor of pointing them at a mirror.
 
I once had one of my mentors tell me something that stuck.  He asked me how I would know when I had reached the point of being accepted as equal among my peers?   His answer surprised me and then I realized it was true.   You are equal when what you do is not longer remarked upon, when you are effectively ignored unless interaction is needed.   While I was in training, success was denoted by praise, failure by admonishment.  Once I was fully qualified and actually competent, success was expected and and not considered special.   
 
Many groups simply do not know how to handle the fact they have succeeded. 
Equality in America means that if you don't work hard you will fail and no one outside your immediate family will really care. 
Success means working 50-80+ hours weeks for years until you achieve that success.
Are there people that get a hand up because their parents were successful?  Sure.  But that is true in the US across the spectrum origin.  
 
Our biggest issue is that the people that are most vocal in dissent, I don't call it actual protesting because a real protestor has a specific goal and an idea of how to achieve it.   They are just demanding and wanting some undefined vague "other person" to pay for it. 
 
You want universal free healthcare?  Cool.  But you cannot use any of the existing structure.  You need to redefine how things are paid for.  Yes paid for.  Since it is free, you will need to establish a tax to pay for it.  Since it is mandated and free, you have to eliminate the very lucrative lawsuit machine.  To ensure quality of care is evenly available you need to eliminate monetary issues, establish a civil service/military style pay grade system.    All surgeons with 15 years experience get 50K a year plus a locality adjustment to compensate for local housing costs, etc.  The operation goes bad?  No you cannot sue for compensation.  An inquest will determine if it was negligence or criminal and the offender (if there is a guilty one) will be punished.  But you will not get $, you will get free medical because it is free.
 
So far all the Treks have been great.    I may not have personally liked a series because of story line or theme.  Both Voyager and Enterprise sucked because IMO time travel in Trek is the admission from the show runners that they have run out of ideas and are punting.  But all the shows did the exploration and discovery of wide and varied themes very well. 
 
The new movies have nailed the cast but for some reason don't seem to have any idea of what Trek is.  Explosions and destroying the Enterprise in each movie is not it.
 
Adding soft porn and violence is not a formulae needed in a Trek show.  And neither is casting according to a PC checklist.  Instead just cast the part to fill the role needed without fanfare. 
 
Ignore the idiots and move on. 

The latest news I found has pretty much everyone familiar with Trek no longer being on the team.   It looks like classic studio "the old series was so bleh, we must reinvent and fix it" garbage. 
 
Also one article had a quote that essentially said that the studio was ecstatic that being on a streaming format meant they could be "edgy" and "R-rated", nudity is possible. . 
 
Last nail in the coffin for me.  I was pretty much set against paying a fee for just CBS shows, they really don't have that much I watch.  But if they are dropping all the Trek aspects I actually enjoyed to shoe horn in a full plate of soft porn and political correctness, well I'll pass.....

I do love how people talking comics take on quasi-scientific stuff, apply what may be real world scientific principles and then provide quasi-authoritative responses for the quasi science.
 
When my son asks me that kind of stuff my stock response is, it depends on what the writer thinks makes for a better story...
 
It is a great response and often a decent principle when ruling in an RPG...
 
Doc

It does when you realize that being PC is not the domain of a specific group.  In my day we didn't have the term.  You just had groups that tried to suppress anything not in line with their own beliefs.  Be it Discrimination, you are different and therefore not allowed to have the same freedoms as "correctly minded" people.  Or Bigotry, You don't agree with me therefore I refuse to listen or talk to you.   We didn't call it political correctness, but it was alive and well.  Trek ignored these conventions by setting up great stories and then injecting items that were decidedly not in line with "correct mindedness".   The Vietnam protests were a less elegant, though just as important to how America evolved.  They were all driving forces in reinforcing the fundamental right of free expression guaranteed in the US's governing documents.   When I was growing up, even distasteful or even hateful groups had a right to free expression. 
 
You cannot guarantee a citizen a right and then pick and choose who exercises that right based on whether you personally agree with it.   So while they may be idiots and mentally unstable, a member of the Nazi Party can indeed have a rally or protest.   Is their outlook and vision repugnant and against any sane persons views?  In my opinion yes.  But do they have the right to gather and express those views?  Absolutely.  If you don't want to be exposed to them, don't go.  On the other hand, you cannot actually understand their true positions and platform until you have actually listened to a speech.  Not read an article or view a clip composed/edited by someone else to tell you what they think you should know about them.  But actually see, contemplate and form your own first hand evaluation.   That is what colleges used to be.  Areas allowing free thought, even of things that were frowned upon, so that people could form their opinions first hand. 
 
Sometime in the 80's/90's(??) the idea of free expression became dangerous to those same institutions.  Because free speech and thought is well, free speech and thought.  They suddenly began suppressing dissent by labeling anything that didn't fall into a narrow view not as "wrong" or "forbidden", but as "mean" or "ill mannered".  Over time it has evolved as anything not rigidly in line is "offensive" and any action that does not prominently support that rigid narrow view (regardless of actual reason) is a "micro-aggression".   Anyone who requests the underlying reasoning or information supporting a position is a "hater", "bigot" or when all else fails a "racist".  Instead of reasoned dialog and using discussion to promote a view, the modern methods is to lambast and drive out anyone with a different view and bunker down in closed "safe-spaces" hiding from any form of unapproved information.  
 
Just before the election I was radio hopping, looking for a station that did not have end of the world ranting on it.  From everyone, Left, Right, Middle.  Everyone.  So I found a station where they were talking about restaurants.  Not wages or other politically charged topics, but general types.  Chain, Top End, Hole-in-the-Wall, etc.  They had not even brought up type as in ethnic origin at all.  So the male radio host said ask about what the female host thought about Hole-in-the-Wall restaurants and mentioned that it seemed to him that many people tended to think, right or wrong, that they were less clean that others.  Now here is the main catch, the female host immediately snapped out that he couldn't say that because it was a racist statement.  That!?  I didn't realize that Hole-in-the-Wall was a race of humans.
 
The key point I am making is that our so called centers of education have so isolated themselves in a protected bubble that echoes with only their personal ideas and completely insulates them from, well anything, to the point that they not longer even understand what it is they are supposed to be against. 
 
Bigot is now synonymous with Racist. 
Racist means anyone that does not agree with you.
Instead of listening to someones statement and then saying I disagree and moving on as informed.
They ban anything that might possibly disagree with preconceptions based on someone else's opinion formed equally without information because they also never took the time to listen. 
 
That is what we now call Politically Correct. 
It is not exclusive to the left and what ever agenda a group may have.   All spectrum's have their own defined PC listing.  
 
The sad thing is that most of the small groups have become the rabid hate groups that they are supposedly fighting.    Star Trek never bashed a group or idea.  They never spewed hatred.
They always told a great yarn and then casually slide in a "this is OK too" in such a manner as to provoke thought while at the same time not screaming "you all suck" to anyone that did not agree.  
 
Trek was great. 
 
Take Discovery.   
There is going to be a gay character.  So?  what is the difference between a gay football team and a not gay football team as far as playing the sport?  Nothing.  In fact "gay" is irrelevant to football.  
What will the character be?  An Engineer? OK cool.  Gay is not a factor in engineering.  There is no need for trumpets and fanfare.  Trek is about exploration and discovery.  Treat the side story personal relationship stuff just like they do for the non-gay characters.   Casual side comments and "its no big deal" this is just normal. 
 
The main character is going to be a woman? So?  This is not even worth a mention.  Sci-Fi/Fantasy across all media has been having strong leading female roles for decades.  Half of my favorite shows on TV to include Crime Procedurals and Drama's have female leads.  This is just a non-event.
 
What is bad about Discovery is the giddy joy that it can now have soft porn and gritty violence.   I love Game of Thrones, but full frontal nudity, soft porn and gory blood splatter scenes fit that story.
Star Trek implied off screen romance and centered the stories on exploration and discovery.  Note I said romance, not sex.  While they can be the same, romance implies a less gutter version.
 
The problem is that we have so many people (under 30) that no longer even know what they are so violently against.  They pop out catch phrases and memes without any real understanding of what they are even saying.  Ask for someone to define the word "bigot".  Generally speaking, though not always, they will pop out "a person that is racist".  They definitely won't say "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions".  And they will not get the humor of pointing them at a mirror.
 
I once had one of my mentors tell me something that stuck.  He asked me how I would know when I had reached the point of being accepted as equal among my peers?   His answer surprised me and then I realized it was true.   You are equal when what you do is not longer remarked upon, when you are effectively ignored unless interaction is needed.   While I was in training, success was denoted by praise, failure by admonishment.  Once I was fully qualified and actually competent, success was expected and and not considered special.   
 
Many groups simply do not know how to handle the fact they have succeeded. 
Equality in America means that if you don't work hard you will fail and no one outside your immediate family will really care. 
Success means working 50-80+ hours weeks for years until you achieve that success.
Are there people that get a hand up because their parents were successful?  Sure.  But that is true in the US across the spectrum origin.  
 
Our biggest issue is that the people that are most vocal in dissent, I don't call it actual protesting because a real protestor has a specific goal and an idea of how to achieve it.   They are just demanding and wanting some undefined vague "other person" to pay for it. 
 
You want universal free healthcare?  Cool.  But you cannot use any of the existing structure.  You need to redefine how things are paid for.  Yes paid for.  Since it is free, you will need to establish a tax to pay for it.  Since it is mandated and free, you have to eliminate the very lucrative lawsuit machine.  To ensure quality of care is evenly available you need to eliminate monetary issues, establish a civil service/military style pay grade system.    All surgeons with 15 years experience get 50K a year plus a locality adjustment to compensate for local housing costs, etc.  The operation goes bad?  No you cannot sue for compensation.  An inquest will determine if it was negligence or criminal and the offender (if there is a guilty one) will be punished.  But you will not get $, you will get free medical because it is free.
 
So far all the Treks have been great.    I may not have personally liked a series because of story line or theme.  Both Voyager and Enterprise sucked because IMO time travel in Trek is the admission from the show runners that they have run out of ideas and are punting.  But all the shows did the exploration and discovery of wide and varied themes very well. 
 
The new movies have nailed the cast but for some reason don't seem to have any idea of what Trek is.  Explosions and destroying the Enterprise in each movie is not it.
 
Adding soft porn and violence is not a formulae needed in a Trek show.  And neither is casting according to a PC checklist.  Instead just cast the part to fill the role needed without fanfare. 
 
Ignore the idiots and move on. 

It does when you realize that being PC is not the domain of a specific group.  In my day we didn't have the term.  You just had groups that tried to suppress anything not in line with their own beliefs.  Be it Discrimination, you are different and therefore not allowed to have the same freedoms as "correctly minded" people.  Or Bigotry, You don't agree with me therefore I refuse to listen or talk to you.   We didn't call it political correctness, but it was alive and well.  Trek ignored these conventions by setting up great stories and then injecting items that were decidedly not in line with "correct mindedness".   The Vietnam protests were a less elegant, though just as important to how America evolved.  They were all driving forces in reinforcing the fundamental right of free expression guaranteed in the US's governing documents.   When I was growing up, even distasteful or even hateful groups had a right to free expression. 
 
You cannot guarantee a citizen a right and then pick and choose who exercises that right based on whether you personally agree with it.   So while they may be idiots and mentally unstable, a member of the Nazi Party can indeed have a rally or protest.   Is their outlook and vision repugnant and against any sane persons views?  In my opinion yes.  But do they have the right to gather and express those views?  Absolutely.  If you don't want to be exposed to them, don't go.  On the other hand, you cannot actually understand their true positions and platform until you have actually listened to a speech.  Not read an article or view a clip composed/edited by someone else to tell you what they think you should know about them.  But actually see, contemplate and form your own first hand evaluation.   That is what colleges used to be.  Areas allowing free thought, even of things that were frowned upon, so that people could form their opinions first hand. 
 
Sometime in the 80's/90's(??) the idea of free expression became dangerous to those same institutions.  Because free speech and thought is well, free speech and thought.  They suddenly began suppressing dissent by labeling anything that didn't fall into a narrow view not as "wrong" or "forbidden", but as "mean" or "ill mannered".  Over time it has evolved as anything not rigidly in line is "offensive" and any action that does not prominently support that rigid narrow view (regardless of actual reason) is a "micro-aggression".   Anyone who requests the underlying reasoning or information supporting a position is a "hater", "bigot" or when all else fails a "racist".  Instead of reasoned dialog and using discussion to promote a view, the modern methods is to lambast and drive out anyone with a different view and bunker down in closed "safe-spaces" hiding from any form of unapproved information.  
 
Just before the election I was radio hopping, looking for a station that did not have end of the world ranting on it.  From everyone, Left, Right, Middle.  Everyone.  So I found a station where they were talking about restaurants.  Not wages or other politically charged topics, but general types.  Chain, Top End, Hole-in-the-Wall, etc.  They had not even brought up type as in ethnic origin at all.  So the male radio host said ask about what the female host thought about Hole-in-the-Wall restaurants and mentioned that it seemed to him that many people tended to think, right or wrong, that they were less clean that others.  Now here is the main catch, the female host immediately snapped out that he couldn't say that because it was a racist statement.  That!?  I didn't realize that Hole-in-the-Wall was a race of humans.
 
The key point I am making is that our so called centers of education have so isolated themselves in a protected bubble that echoes with only their personal ideas and completely insulates them from, well anything, to the point that they not longer even understand what it is they are supposed to be against. 
 
Bigot is now synonymous with Racist. 
Racist means anyone that does not agree with you.
Instead of listening to someones statement and then saying I disagree and moving on as informed.
They ban anything that might possibly disagree with preconceptions based on someone else's opinion formed equally without information because they also never took the time to listen. 
 
That is what we now call Politically Correct. 
It is not exclusive to the left and what ever agenda a group may have.   All spectrum's have their own defined PC listing.  
 
The sad thing is that most of the small groups have become the rabid hate groups that they are supposedly fighting.    Star Trek never bashed a group or idea.  They never spewed hatred.
They always told a great yarn and then casually slide in a "this is OK too" in such a manner as to provoke thought while at the same time not screaming "you all suck" to anyone that did not agree.  
 
Trek was great. 
 
Take Discovery.   
There is going to be a gay character.  So?  what is the difference between a gay football team and a not gay football team as far as playing the sport?  Nothing.  In fact "gay" is irrelevant to football.  
What will the character be?  An Engineer? OK cool.  Gay is not a factor in engineering.  There is no need for trumpets and fanfare.  Trek is about exploration and discovery.  Treat the side story personal relationship stuff just like they do for the non-gay characters.   Casual side comments and "its no big deal" this is just normal. 
 
The main character is going to be a woman? So?  This is not even worth a mention.  Sci-Fi/Fantasy across all media has been having strong leading female roles for decades.  Half of my favorite shows on TV to include Crime Procedurals and Drama's have female leads.  This is just a non-event.
 
What is bad about Discovery is the giddy joy that it can now have soft porn and gritty violence.   I love Game of Thrones, but full frontal nudity, soft porn and gory blood splatter scenes fit that story.
Star Trek implied off screen romance and centered the stories on exploration and discovery.  Note I said romance, not sex.  While they can be the same, romance implies a less gutter version.
 
The problem is that we have so many people (under 30) that no longer even know what they are so violently against.  They pop out catch phrases and memes without any real understanding of what they are even saying.  Ask for someone to define the word "bigot".  Generally speaking, though not always, they will pop out "a person that is racist".  They definitely won't say "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions".  And they will not get the humor of pointing them at a mirror.
 
I once had one of my mentors tell me something that stuck.  He asked me how I would know when I had reached the point of being accepted as equal among my peers?   His answer surprised me and then I realized it was true.   You are equal when what you do is not longer remarked upon, when you are effectively ignored unless interaction is needed.   While I was in training, success was denoted by praise, failure by admonishment.  Once I was fully qualified and actually competent, success was expected and and not considered special.   
 
Many groups simply do not know how to handle the fact they have succeeded. 
Equality in America means that if you don't work hard you will fail and no one outside your immediate family will really care. 
Success means working 50-80+ hours weeks for years until you achieve that success.
Are there people that get a hand up because their parents were successful?  Sure.  But that is true in the US across the spectrum origin.  
 
Our biggest issue is that the people that are most vocal in dissent, I don't call it actual protesting because a real protestor has a specific goal and an idea of how to achieve it.   They are just demanding and wanting some undefined vague "other person" to pay for it. 
 
You want universal free healthcare?  Cool.  But you cannot use any of the existing structure.  You need to redefine how things are paid for.  Yes paid for.  Since it is free, you will need to establish a tax to pay for it.  Since it is mandated and free, you have to eliminate the very lucrative lawsuit machine.  To ensure quality of care is evenly available you need to eliminate monetary issues, establish a civil service/military style pay grade system.    All surgeons with 15 years experience get 50K a year plus a locality adjustment to compensate for local housing costs, etc.  The operation goes bad?  No you cannot sue for compensation.  An inquest will determine if it was negligence or criminal and the offender (if there is a guilty one) will be punished.  But you will not get $, you will get free medical because it is free.
 
So far all the Treks have been great.    I may not have personally liked a series because of story line or theme.  Both Voyager and Enterprise sucked because IMO time travel in Trek is the admission from the show runners that they have run out of ideas and are punting.  But all the shows did the exploration and discovery of wide and varied themes very well. 
 
The new movies have nailed the cast but for some reason don't seem to have any idea of what Trek is.  Explosions and destroying the Enterprise in each movie is not it.
 
Adding soft porn and violence is not a formulae needed in a Trek show.  And neither is casting according to a PC checklist.  Instead just cast the part to fill the role needed without fanfare. 
 
Ignore the idiots and move on. 

The biggest problem I had with Neelix was that he just wasn't interesting.  He was there pretty much there as an appendage to Kes--and Kes wasn't that interesting, either.
 
In all, though, I thought Voyager had a good group of characters. Tom Paris was great, and having him take newbie Harry Kim under his wing made for some cool stories. I liked Janeway quite well when the writers weren't using her as a straw feminist (not that she was ever as bad as Samantha Carter in the first few episodes of SG-1). Tuvok and even Chakotay were interesting in their own ways. And Robert Picardo played the Doctor brilliantly. The cast--both actors and characters--had real potential.
 
Too bad the writing was so inconsistent.

I don't know if it has been shown where you are but "Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries" is worth a look (set in Melbourne, Australia in the 1920's) is another good Pulp crime detective show.

Hmmm....no.
 
Star Trek is defined by its ability to present concepts even when they are not in lock step with current beliefs. 
 
Star Trek has been pure anti-PC from before the phrase was coined. 
 
Political Correctness is the death of free expression masquerading as a protection from hurt feelings.

Hmmm....no.
 
Star Trek is defined by its ability to present concepts even when they are not in lock step with current beliefs. 
 
Star Trek has been pure anti-PC from before the phrase was coined. 
 
Political Correctness is the death of free expression masquerading as a protection from hurt feelings.

Can we please keep politics out of this thread? I already unsubscribed from the one in the NGD. And I really don't want to stop following this thread, which I started, btw.

Mankind has sent robot invaders to five celestial bodies so far:
 

Sounds like a champions campaign origin waiting to happen...

"I am Ion-Man!"
"During a atmospheric ionisation experient, several scientist were iradiated by Ionic radition and cosmic rays..."

Yup. Some of the highlights are on the website (you don't need to register to watch these). I'm watching some of the fencing and judo videos now. I may just register to watch the matches, including the replays, since there's no extra charge according to the NBC website. I will just have to wake up at 5 am to watch the fencing matches. Good thing it's Sunday.

Blindspot (tv series) 
Castle (tv series) 
Gotham (tv series) 
Limitless (tv series) 
Madam Secretary (tv series) 
Marvel's Agents of Shield (tv series) 
NCIS (tv series) 
NCIS New Orleans (tv series) 
Star Wars Rebels (tv series) 
Supergirl (tv series) 
The Librarians (tv series) 
Star Wars Rebels (tv series) 

I hear you there.  There has been a huge drift in most fiction directly away from what I find interesting.  There is obviously a good following for it otherwise it wouldn't be selling and we would see it going away rather than seeing more of it. 
 
But for me personally, it is harder to find a "good" book to read.  I am really concerned that scifi/fantasy may be going the way of comics, with what I find to be a good read becoming extinct.

I'm not sure what you're point about not seeing the gunman or the muzzle flash is. If someone walks up behind you and stabs you in the back you are at 1/2 DCV for being Surprised despite being hit with an OBVIOUS Accessible Focus. How is getting shot at by someone you didn't see any different? Powers being percievable doesn't mean everyone magically is aware of every attack before it hits them.